On the verge of ending its run at Theater Wit, Remy Bumppo’s production of Blues for an Alabama Sky sheds a fresh light on the consequences of our words and the power of character. Under Mikael Burke’s skillful and frank direction, Pearl Cleage’s journey back to the Harlem Renaissance also reminds us of the value of moral integrity and the price to be paid for its absence.
Cleage peers into a sliver of life during one of the vaunted periods of African American history. A brief era when expressions of Black creativity in art and literature were finally being affirmed within the Black community and validated in the broader society. The people we meet are living during the waning days of that uniquely American awakening; just as the Great Migration and the Great Depression converged in the early 1930s. The devastation of that economic disaster was just beginning to reveal its gruesome toll when we meet a small group of friends who radiate a familiarity and comfort toward one another you usually associate with family. A showgirl, a fashion designer, a doctor and a social worker all have their own understanding of what Harlem is to them. It’s dynamism and vitality are real, but Harlem is hardening. Jobs are becoming as scarce as palm trees in Antarctica and evictions are as routine as the next day’s sunrise. With the stock market crash, patronage dollars that helped propel Harlem’s cultural explosion a few years earlier have turned to wisps. Bathtub gin may blunt the sting of Prohibition and jazz may have continued to flourish, but Harlem was becoming a place of precariousness and caution.
It’s through that backdrop that we find Angel (Tiffany Rene Johnson) and Guy (Breon Arzell), struggling to make their way home very late one night. Angel’s fall down drunk, and Guy’s having a hard time negotiating the sidewalk with his friend so unhelpfully unsteady. Announcing that he was about to get married, Angel’s Italian boyfriend “fired” her just before her act was to begin earlier that evening. Incensed that he would pretend as if nothing was amiss as she performed on stage, Angel’s rageful response to his nonchalance left her without a job. As the club’s costume designer, Guy’s defense of her cost him his job, too. Watching over her on her night of solace drinking and then offering her the shelter of his apartment revealed the authenticity of their friendship.
How we view ourselves can determine how we confront the challenges of survival. It also influences what we’ll do to further our goals and dreams. Angel enjoyed the life she had as an entertainer. That she was also the kept woman of a mobster was just another form of security that came with the image. Buffeted by too many disappointments and having digested too much disillusionment in her life, Angel learned to play the angles like a calculating pragmatist. Without a job or her own apartment, her current predicament meant she’d do whatever it takes to further her own well-being.
It was a view of life that ran counter to that of her friend Guy, who poured his energies into fulfilling what looked to Angel like an unattainable dream. Convinced of his talent with costume design, he knew he could tailor creations for Josephine Baker, the Black dancer who had to go to Europe to attain global success. He wanted to join her in Paris as her personal designer and would use his imagination and skills with a needle to get him there.
Guy’s understanding of the cruelty of life probably exceeds Angel’s. Uncompromisingly himself, he not only accepted who he is but rejoices in it. Savvy, talented, resourceful, and with a sense of humor as disarming as it is keen all help make his friendship a valued commodity. Cleage wrote the character to be likable and, by embodying so many admirable traits, Guy ultimately becomes a personality anyone’d do well to emulate. That he’s a thoroughly unrepressed gay man is, for all of those in his circle, as insignificant as it is to him. Hardly naïve, Guy’s awareness of the world he lives in is the reason he carried a blade. He refused to be intimidated by those who didn’t care for the way he presented himself on the street.
It’s the unshakable belief he has in himself that makes Guy so engrossing and Arzell’s wonderful portrayal of this force of willful optimism leaves you dreading something may happen to thwart his dream.
Suspense trails the lives of his friends as well. A specter of danger does nothing but grow the longer Angel encourages the attention of Leland (Ajax Dontavius), a recent arrival from Alabama steeped in the rigid mores of the South. The budding romance between Sam (Edgar Sanchez), a doctor who uses the distraction of Harlem’s nightlife to suppress undisclosed demons, and social worker cum activist Delia (Jazzlyn Luckett Aderele), sports a hopelessly endearing purity. One that you’re anxious to see ripen and flourish.
Triumph and tragedy come together to mirror how chance, when mingled with selfish indiscretion, can alter destiny. A stellar performance from every vantage point, this is a production that has all the markings of a masterpiece.
Blues for an Alabama Sky
Through October 15, 2023
Performance Venue: Theater Wit
1229 W. Belmont Ave.
Chicago, IL 60657
Tickets: https://www.theaterwit.org/tickets/productions/486/performances#top
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